


Free Until They Cut Me Down

by bashert



Category: Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 01:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bashert/pseuds/bashert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she wakes up the first time, all she can see is water, cold and paralyzing, and then there’s a pair of warm hands and an even warmer voice in her ear,</p><p>	“I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” And relief rushes over her and then there’s nothing but blackness</p><p> </p><p>Marta and Aaron come home and Byer has a score to settle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When the men take me to the devil tree

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song by Iron and Wine.

When she wakes up the first time, all she can see is water, cold and paralyzing, and then there’s a pair of warm hands and an even warmer voice in her ear,

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” And relief rushes over her and then there’s nothing but blackness.

 

* * *

 

When she opens her eyes a second time she’s dry and alone and everything is kind of blurry.

She has no idea how she got to where she is, or even, actually, where she is, and there’s a sort of dull, aching pain all over her body. Her head is swimming, and then it rushes back to her: the car filling with water, and then Aaron, _Aaron_ , his strong hands pulling her out, and his voice in her ear telling her that he has her.

She’s in a hospital, she figures out, and she tries to sit up, but there’s that pain and she sinks further into the pillows. The sound of a door catches her attention, and then Aaron is there, his hand squeezing her hand tightly, and his eyes narrowing in concern.

“How you doing, Doc?” He asks, his voice rough, and he brings their clasped hands up to his mouth and brushes a kiss along her knuckles.

“Even my earlobes hurt,” she reports, which gets a chuckle out of him .“What happened?” His face goes stony, and she can see his jaw clench.

“They ran you off a bridge,” he replies, and he leans his forehead so it rests against hers. “You called, do you remember calling me?” It’s fuzzy, but it’s there, her panic when she realized someone was following her, her fingers shaking as she pressed the button and Aaron answering the phone. He always repeated over and over again to trust her instincts.

“If you think something is not right, speak up,” he would tell her.

“I think someone is following me,” she had said, keeping one eye on her rearview mirror.

“Where are you?” Aaron’s voice was tight.

“Almost home, almost to the bridge,” she answered. “I think…” And then they had run into the back of her car, and she had shrieked a little, and the collision had made her drop the phone. Another push had her car careening off the side of the bridge and she had yelled for Aaron, praying that the call hadn’t disconnected.

“I called you,” she tells Aaron, and his grip on her hands tightens. “That’s all I remember before hitting the water. And then you were there. How did you get there?”

“I broke about every law on the books to get there,” he answers, his voice low. “I think my heart stopped when you screamed. When I got there your car was half underwater, and I dove in to pull you out.”

He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the image of Marta slumped over the steering wheel as the car filled dangerously high with water. He had broken the glass, and more water had rushed in, and he had been so relieved, so goddamned relieved, when Marta blinked her eyes at him, a dazed look in her eyes, and he had whispered that he had her as he tugged her out of the quickly sinking car. The water was cold, and Marta was dead weight as he kicked towards the shore, and finally, _finally_ , he stood and picked her up in his arms and cradled her body against his as he listened for the sirens.

Marta didn’t need to ask who it was who ran her off the road. She knew exactly who it was.

After two years, and a couple Presidential pardons, Eric Byer was still hunting Outcome 5 and his good doctor.

* * *

They had been on the run for a little over a year when the news broke that the lid had been blown on Operation Outcome. Soon, the media knew everything: Treadstone, Blackbriar, Outcome.

They were holed up in Vienna when it happened, Marta was still curled up in bed, when Aaron turned on the news and saw Byer being arrested and led, handcuffed, into a waiting car. Aaron sank onto the bed, and Marta sat up, and sleepily asked, “What? What is it?” He spun around and grabbed her and pressed a hard kiss on her lips.

“You can go home, Doc,” he breathed. He pressed another kiss to her bare shoulder, and then he celebrated the news by worshipping her body.

He had been afraid, at first, when they finally heard from the CIA and received confirmation that they would receive amnesty in exchange for testimony against NRAG and Byer, that Marta would go back to her life and leave him behind. But all it had taken was a breathless, “But, I love you,” from Marta, and a “I’d rather stay on the run with you than be safe without you,” to soothe his fears.

They settled in Boston, and Marta easily found a new job at a new lab.

“No top secret government experiments,” she promised. “I can even publish!” Her eyes were shining so brightly and she was so excited that Aaron grinned and fell a little more in love with her.

Aaron was offered a consulting job with the CIA, and they bought a house in Mansfield, far enough away from the city that they had a little more of the space they had been missing jumping from overcrowded city to overcrowded city.

It was easier than anticipated, coming back from the dead. Aaron had no family and no connections, so it was very easy for him, but Marta had her sister, and she called her from Vienna to confirm that she was alive, okay, and coming home. She had cried, her sister Beth had cried, and Beth had insisted on meeting them at the airport when they finally arrived back on American soil.

She had told Beth that she was not coming home alone, and she had kept her hand firmly in Aaron’s as she pulled him towards her sister. Beth threw her arms around her baby sister, pulling her close and rocking her slightly as both sobbed openly. Aaron shifted his weight uncomfortably until Marta pulled back.

“Bethy, this is Aaron,” she introduced. “He saved my life, and I love him.” It was blunt, and simple, and he felt a rush of warmth and a surge of love for her.

It was seven months after they returned to the United States that another news story broke. Aaron was at home putting in new tile in their kitchen, and Marta was at work, when a story caught his attention.

Eric Byer and Noah Vosen had escaped from police custody.

His heart stopped, and he called Marta’s phone immediately. Logically he knew that she was at work, that she was in the lab, that she wasn’t in any danger at that exact moment, but logic was superceded by the overwhelming need to talk to her, hear her voice, and confirm that she was safe. She answered on the fourth ring.

“Hey, honey, what’s going on?” Her voice sounded distracted, like she normally did when she was deep into a project at work, and just the sound of her made it easier to breathe.

“I need you to be really careful when you leave work. Get someone to walk you to your car and come straight home,” he insisted.

“What’s going on?” He had her attention, and he quickly explained all he knew. She promised to get someone to walk her to her car, and even promised that she would leave work as soon as she wrapped some things up.

When she arrived home an hour later, they had sat down and worked out a plan to keep them, but mostly her, safe. Marta would call when she got to work, and she would get someone to walk her to car daily. She would call when she was leaving work, and she would call if she was stopping at all on the way home. He made her promise to keep alert, and pleaded with her to be careful.

They spent that night wrapped around each other, Aaron checking the locks on the doors at least five times, and with a gun in easy reach.

But months had passed, and they were beginning to relax.

Maybe Byer wasn’t even in the country anymore.

Maybe he was holed up in the same run down motels they had been. Maybe he had forgotten about Outcome 5 and Dr. Shearing.

Marta had believed that he had, and Aaron wanted so badly for that to be true for her. She believed until she looked in her rearview mirror and knew, instinctively, that they were following her.

* * *

Despite her best efforts to stay awake and reassure Aaron that she was okay, Marta quickly falls back asleep, her body suffering from both injuries from the car accident, and from a mild case of hypothermia thanks to the freezing water.

Aaron doesn’t tell her that she’s been out for three days, that he’s been sitting vigil next to her bed, praying to any deity that will listen that she’ll be okay. He doesn’t tell her how afraid he was, and how he kept her cradled to his chest until the ambulance arrived, and how her lips were slightly blue and blood oozed from a nasty cut above her eye.

But mostly, he doesn’t tell her that he thinks this is just the beginning. Byer’s got a score to settle, and as much as he hates to admit it, Aaron thinks the attack on Marta isn’t going to be the last.


	2. I will be free and shining like before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is going to continue the same pattern as the first chapter, switching from current time to their lives as they readjusted to being back on American soil. Hopefully it's not too confusing.

Aaron isn’t sure who is happier that Marta is home, but he knows that for the first time since she said the words, “I think someone is following me,” he can breathe a little easier.

He gets her settled in their bed, and is amazed by how much easier it is to focus when he knows that she’s safe.

His first call is to Pamela Landy and the CIA. He wants to think that he can trust them, especially Landy, who met them at their house three days after they had moved in and promised that whatever she could do in order to make their transition back into civilian life easier, she would. He doesn’t trust anyone fully, though, with the exception of the beautiful doctor currently resting in his bed. But he recognizes that he and Marta don’t have to take on Byer alone, and moreover, that they _shouldn’t_ try to take on Byer alone. Byer clearly has influences and power that reaches farther than Aaron had guessed.

He might have underestimated Byer once before, but he wouldn’t do it again.

Landy and her assistant Tom Cronin arrive in record time, a soft knock on the back door marks their arrival.

Aaron’s not sure if Byer and his people are still around, but he’d rather err on the side of caution and assume that Byer has his house watched. He knows that he doesn’t want Byer to know that he has the CIA working with him and protecting Marta.

“How is she?” Landy asks as soon as they cross into the house, and Aaron finds that he likes that her first question was about Marta’s wellbeing. He thinks it bodes well for this arrangement.

“She’s okay. She’ll be fine,” Aaron repeats these words silently in his head to remind himself. She’s okay. She’ll be fine. “She’s upstairs sleeping.”

“We have agents watching the house,” Landy tells Aaron. He’s not sure if that’s supposed to make him feel better, and he reminds himself that Marta’s safety is more important than his trust issues.

“Good,” Aaron nods. “Tell me what you know. I’m assuming Byer and Vosen are working together, right?”

“Right,” Landy confirms. “We have the two of them spotted on some security cameras outside of Newark two days after the attack on Dr. Shearing.” Two days after the attack, when Aaron was planted at Marta’s side, and out of his mind with worry. Two days after he had plunged into cold water to pull her out, and two days after he had had to confront the possibility that he might have to live his life without her.

It was a horrifying possibility, and one he never wanted to have to entertain again. His hands clench, and he has to calm himself back down.

She’s okay, he thinks. She’s upstairs, and she’s safe and she’s okay.

“Who else is working with them? Do we know?”

“We know of at least a few junior agents who were involved in helping them escape custody,” Cronin reports. “We have their names, but unfortunately they are now off the grid. We sent a team to Newark, but they were long gone when we got there.”

“Aaron,” Landy’s voice is soft. “We’re looking at a dead end. We’re not sure how big of a network Byer is working with. We have our techs looking into it, and we’re trying to work with the footage from around Newark, but to be honest, Byer knows what he’s doing, and it’s almost as if he just dropped off the face of the earth.” Aaron knows all of this. He knows that Byer knows the system, knows where they’ll look for him, and what to avoid. If Byer wanted to disappear he could, but Aaron also knows that Byer doesn’t want to disappear. He wants revenge, and Aaron is hoping that will be his downfall.

“He’s not going to stay hidden for long. He’s going to resurface, and we’re going to be waiting,” Cronin speaks up.

“He’s going to come after her again,” it’s not a question.

“Yes,” Cronin agrees. “We believe he will.” Aaron’s jaw tightens at the thought of Marta in danger.

“But we’re not going to let anything happen to her,” Landy assures him. “We’re going to be waiting. One false move and we have him. We just have to wait for him to come to us.”

The problem, Aaron thinks, is that he’s never been very good at waiting.

* * *

It took Marta and Aaron no time at all to pick out a house outside of Boston after they had stepped back onto American soil. Marta was anxious to have a settled life again, and Aaron was anxious to give her anything she wanted.

On the second day in the house, Marta went out without Aaron for the first time.

“I’ll be okay,” she kept repeating. “Beth will be with me. You stay here and work on the list I gave you.” She gave him a wink, and then pressed her lips to his cheek.

“You have your phone?” He checked, and she nodded. He stood and watched as she and her sister pulled out of the driveway with a wave, and then returned to the list of chores that Marta had written out for him. It was so damn domestic, that list, and the fact that Marta’s chicken scratch had not improved one bit made him smile.

It was a crazy concept. He and Marta, domestic. They weren’t on the run, they weren’t being chased, they had a house in the suburbs and Marta was out with her sister to buy curtains and rugs and throw pillows.

Their new life took some getting used to. Marta had to readjust to going to work and to not being terrified at all times that one of her co-workers was going to pull out a gun and kill them all. They had lain in bed one night and worked out a plan in case something should happen to Marta at work. Aaron knew Marta well enough to know that she was calmer when she had a plan to work with. Her new job had fairly tight security, but not anything like her last job. She wasn’t able to have a phone on her at all times, depending where she was in the lab, but they plotted out where exactly the phones were in the lab, and using a schematic, Aaron showed her where she could hide and get to a phone to call him.

“Not the police?” She had asked with a small smile.

“Both,” he pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “But you call me first. I always want to be your first call.”

He didn’t mind staying home while she went to work. He slowly gutted the house, enjoying working with his hands and rebuilding the place where he and Marta were going to live. When she would get home from work in the evening, she would curl up next to him on the couch as he went over his plans for the kitchen or the bathroom or the backyard with a beer in one hand and his other arm wrapped around her shoulders.

Occasionally they even did normal things, like a normal couple. Only, Marta would joke with a smile, not completely like a normal couple. At the movies Aaron insisted on sitting in the back row, and at restaurants, he liked tables where his back was against a wall. He also nearly always had some sort of weapon on him, and for those first few months he was constantly paranoid about people following him, or worse, following Marta.

It took months for him to finally relax and not panic every time she left his sight.

It only took one phone call, one awful phone call, to change everything.

* * *

Marta appears in the doorway to the kitchen about an hour after Landy and Cronin arrive. She looks marginally confused to see more than just Aaron in their kitchen, and Aaron is on his feet in a moment, hurrying over to her.

“You okay, Doc?” He wraps an arm around her waist.

“I thought I heard voices,” she says, and he leans down and presses a kiss to her temple.

“Dr. Shearing,” Landy stands and offers out her hand. “It’s good to see you again. How are you feeling?” Marta takes it and gives a small shrug.

“I’m okay. I’ve been better,” but I’ve also been worse, she adds silently in her head. “What’s going on?”

“You should go back to bed,” Aaron starts, but Marta shakes her head.

“What’s going on?” She repeats.

“I was just telling Aaron what we know so far,” Landy begins, and Aaron guides Marta to his chair and she sinks into it gratefully. Landy shows Marta the intel they’ve gathered about Byer’s possible whereabouts. She tells her about the techs working on hacking into possible email accounts, and agents pulling surveillance feed from all over the east coast, focusing on Newark, since he was spotted there.

“But you don’t know exactly where he is?” Marta looks up at Landy, and she feels Aaron place his hands on her shoulders and give them a light squeeze. “So we let him come to us, right? That’s the plan? He’ll come after Aaron or me again, and then we get him?”

“I won’t let anything happen to you again,” Aaron’s voice is firm. “He wants to go after you, it’ll be over my dead body.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Landy chimes in. “Let me rephrase that: it won’t come to that.”

Aaron goes over the precautions they are taking to ensure Marta’s safety.

“And yours,” Marta adds.

“And mine,” Aaron assures. He tells her about the agents watching the house, and then he takes Cronin and Landy to his office where they will set up command.

“They’re going to work out of here?” Marta asks, and Aaron wonders if he should have run this past her. He wants her to maintain a semblance of normalcy, seeing as she just got her stable life back, but he also wants Byer caught.

“Is that okay?” Aaron asks, and Marta nods.

“I just want him found,” she says, her voice tired. Aaron wraps his arms around her and pulls her close to him.

“We’ll find him, I promise,” he murmurs as he buries his face in her dark hair. “He can’t hide forever.”


	3. Don't tell me what I should have done

Marta’s house is full of strangers.

People are constantly coming and going, and for the first few days she doesn’t notice, or maybe she just doesn’t care, because she’s still so damn tired and sore. What she does notice, when she bothers to pay attention, is how hard Aaron is working to keep everyone away from their bedroom. She’s spotted him yelling at more than one tech that wandered upstairs and down towards the master bedroom.

“The deal is that you can use whatever you need, _downstairs_ ,” his voice is firm, and she can’t see, but she imagines him putting a strong hand on the tech’s back and redirecting him towards the stairs. “She’s sleeping. She’s resting. No one is supposed to be up here. This,” she imagines his arms sweeping out to gesture to the upstairs, “is our space. That is your space.” After he yells, the door to the bedroom always creaks open and he peeks around the door to see if she’s still asleep. Most of the time she can’t be bothered to move, but the first time she lifted her hand in a weak attempt at a wave and he rushed over.

“Did they wake you up?” There was controlled anger in his voice, and Marta wasn’t sure if she was amused by how overprotective he was, or completely in awe of it, in awe of that fact that someone loves her that much, but either way she grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“No, I was awake already,” she reassured. He brushed a kiss onto her forehead.

“How are you feeling?” He settled down on the bed next to her, his fingers skimming her arm.

“Eh,” which is about as close as she can get to putting into words how she’s feeling. She’s been better, but she also recognizes that she’s feeling better, and to be honest she was in this much pain after their motorcycle ride in Manila and she didn’t have days upon days to lay in a comfortable bed with Aaron tending to her every whim and want.

That’s not entirely true. She still did have Aaron tending to her every whim and want, but it was different then. He was unsure of himself then, and his words and actions were always so careful. She likes this better, his touch still gentle, but assured, his fingers brushing hair out of her eyes, or his strong hand splayed on her back. He likes being in constant contact, and she likes letting him. Since the accident, there seems to be a need from him to reassure himself that she’s there, that she’s okay.

“I’ll keep them away from our room,” and she doesn’t doubt he’ll try, and it’s only when she finally gets back on her feet and ventures from their bedroom that she notices how difficult of a task that really is. There are agents and techs everywhere. It’s an infestation, she thinks, and then idly wonders what kind of exterminator you can call to get rid of unwanted Feds.

“Dr. Shearing,” Landy nods at her when Marta steps into the kitchen to head to the coffee pot, and Aaron darts his hand out from where he’s sitting at the table to grab hers. He brings it to his lips with a kiss and a smile, and she leans over and kisses the crown of his head. “It’s good to see you up and moving. How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” Marta confirms. 

“Would you like filled in on what we know so far?” Cronin asks and Aaron scoffs.

“Of course she does,” he flashes her a grin, and she pours herself a cup of coffee and settles into the chair next to Aaron. She listens as they unroll a map in front of her, circling where they think Byer is most likely to be hiding based on surveillance and what they know about him. They show her pictures of people who they think he has working for him, and tell her about the techs who are trying to access emails and phone lines that they think are connected to Byer.

“But you still don’t really know where he is,” she speaks up, her eyes coming up to meet Aaron’s.

“Nothing concrete,” Landy admits. Marta wraps her hands around her mug and is quiet for a moment.

“Do you think he knows about all of this?” She motions to the techs and the computers and the millions of people milling around her house. She knows why they are there, and that it’s for her safety and Aaron’s safety, but she just wants her house back. She wants her and Aaron to be curled up on the couch together like it’s any other day, like someone didn’t just try to kill her, like there aren’t people who still want to put a bullet in her head given half a chance.

She likes her quiet life; she likes her quiet house so different than her ramshackle mansion in the woods. She wants everyone to go away and just let her and Aaron be. Damn Byer. Damn him.

“Honestly?” Landy pauses. “Yes. I do.”

“He won’t make a move while all of you are here. He’s better at waiting than all of us combined. He’ll wait until you’re all gone and then he’ll swoop in when we aren’t expecting it. It could be years. He’ll wait for years if he has to,” Marta shudders at the thought of living with this kind of fear for years. She notices her voice raising and becoming shriller, but she can’t stop it, and Aaron is tugging her, chair and all, closer to him and wrapping his arms around her tightly. His rough, large hands are tangled in her hair as he pulls her head so that her face is buried in the crook of his neck.

“Hey, hey, Doc,” he whispers. “It’s okay. We’ll get him.”

“I think we should draw him out,” Marta finally says after she calms down. Her face is still pressed up against Aaron’s skin, but she turns so that her words aren’t muffled. “We need to use something he wants, and make it available for his taking. It’s the only way he’ll come out of hiding.”

“I agree,” Landy replies. Aaron looks confused for only a second, and then begins shaking his head vehemently.

“No,” his voice is firm. “No, no, _no_.”

“Aaron,” Marta starts.

“No!” Aaron jumps from his seat so quickly that he knocks the chair backwards. He barely glances at it.

“It’s the only way,” Marta begins again.

“We can use me,” he insists.

“You’ve looked at all the intel,” Landy interjects. “You know that he’ll go after Marta first. He wants you to suffer. This is more than just his tying up loose ends. This is about revenge.” Aaron is quiet, and Marta can see his jaw clench, can see a muscle twitch that only twitches when he’s incredibly angry.

“I hate this idea,” he says in a low voice that Marta has only heard a few times before. She rushes to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and he hesitates only a moment before reciprocating, his arms around her so tightly that it almost hurts.

“You won’t let anything happen to me,” she whispers. “I know you won’t.”

* * *

 

They have neighbors.

It’s something that still sort of blows Aaron’s mind, even after living here for a few months. They have neighbors who they know, and who know them too. Aaron is the first to meet their next door neighbors, he happens to be taking out the garbage the same time as the guy who lives in the yellow house next door.

“I’m Ryan,” the guy introduced, his hand extended for Aaron to shake. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

“Aaron,” he replied. “And thanks.”

“Where are you coming from?” Ryan asked.

“Oh, I was working abroad,” Aaron answered, and it’s not too far off from the truth. “We’ve been traveling for the past year or so.”

“Anywhere good?” Ryan smiled, and Aaron shrugged.

“Bali was pretty beautiful,” he answered with a smile of his own.

“Bali? And you came back to Boston? What’s wrong with you?” They both laugh lightly, and then Aaron shrugged again.

“Marta’s job is here, and she was anxious to get home,” he gestured to the house. “She’s a virologist.”

“Man, I don’t even know what that is,” Ryan admitted. “And you?”

“Right now I’m just fixing up the house, doing some consulting work,” Aaron answered, and it hit him like a punch that he wasn’t lying. He didn’t need to. He was telling his new neighbor about he and Marta, and none of it was a lie. It kept happening. They would introduce themselves, ask about Marta, and Aaron would answer truthfully. She was a doctor, he was doing some consulting work, and they didn’t have roots anywhere so Boston seemed like the best choice. No one seemed to remember their faces from when they were being accused of being a terrorist, but that was so long ago, and Aaron, and particularly Marta, seemed to unlikely to have anything to do with secret government experiments and projects.

Marta insisted on inviting Ryan and his wife Jen over for dinner, and that was a new experience for Aaron too. They hosted a dinner party. A _dinner_ party. Aaron kept waiting for someone to show up and escort him out of this new life. He looked around the dinner table, _his_ dinner table, and marveled at it all. His arm was draped casually over Marta’s shoulder and she tangled their fingers together while she drank wine and laughed with Neighbor Jen. Neighbor Ryan teased him about when he was going to make Marta an honest woman, and Aaron thought, huh. She responded with a kiss on his jaw line and a flippant line about modern women and the antiquated notion of marriage, but the word buzzed around Aaron’s brain until he couldn’t think about anything else.

When they climbed into bed that night, Marta slightly drunk from the bottle of wine she had shared with Neighbor Jen, Aaron tugged her close and brushed the hair back from her face.

“What do you think about it? Marriage, I mean?” Marta looked confused, her eyebrows drawing together.

“What, you mean you and me? That’s what we’re talking about here? I don’t need to be married, Aaron, don’t worry about it. I just need you,” she was sincere, and it was the sincerity in her voice that made him go out the next day and buy a ring.

She didn’t need anything but him, and she didn’t need a piece of paper that said she would stay with him always. He knew that. He knew that she was in this forever, but suddenly he wanted it. He wanted her to know that he was also in this all the way, and it was incredibly important all of a sudden to buy a ring and make sure it went on her finger and never left. This wasn’t just a cover, or a fake identity that he was hiding behind, this was his life. She was his life. And he was determined to do right by her.

* * *

 

The techs move all of their stuff out, down to an empty house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

It takes a few weeks, to make it look like a new family is moving into the empty house, and make sure if Byer has people watching it looks like they are just slowly taking agents away from the case. Aaron is antsy to get this all over with, but Marta reminds him that they need to do this right so that Byer comes out of hiding.

“I can’t live with this fear over my head indefinitely,” she tells Aaron. She goes back to work, but he insists on driving her every day. She doesn’t argue, which only surprises him a little. She’s still shaken up, and he knows that she’s more terrified than she’s letting on about this plan, this terrible, awful plan, where she’s the bait.

He’s still incredibly unhappy about the whole thing. He knows, on an instinctual and rational level that Marta’s right. Byer wants him to have to live with the knowledge that he failed to protect her. And Byer’s right about _that_. Failing to protect Marta, having to watch her die would be worse than any physical pain that Byer can inflict. Even the thought of it makes Aaron’s insides ache. It makes him want to lock Marta up in the house and surround it with tanks and CIA agents, but he knows that she wants to go back to their peaceful existence. She wants to have dinner parties with Neighbor Jen and Neighbor Ryan. She wants to invite her friends from the lab over for a summer barbeque in the great backyard that Aaron is fixing up, and he wants to be able to give that to her. Aaron knows that the only way to get Byer out is to draw him out, and the only way to draw him out is to use Marta, but he also knows that he will die before he lets anything else happen to her.

“Stop thinking so much,” Marta admonishes as she gathers her things to step out of the car. She traces a finger along his jaw line and then kisses where her finger just was. “Everything’s going to be fine. He only thinks he can get to me. I trust you.” This time she kisses him squarely on the mouth. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Doc,” he picks up her hand and brushes a kiss across her knuckles. “Be safe?”

And she nods, and with a quick, “You too!” she’s out of the car and hurrying into the building.


	4. She's the one that begged me

“You’re nervous,” Marta’s voice is low in the darkness of their bedroom, and he looks down at her in surprise. She’s curled up against his side, with his arm wrapped tightly around her. He had been unable to sleep, his mind racing.

“I thought you were asleep,” he says. Usually he could tell by her deep, even breathing, but he had been too preoccupied to notice her wake. “I didn’t wake you, did I?” Marta shakes her head, and presses herself closer to him. “I _am_ nervous.” He tangles their fingers together and brushes a kiss to the top of her head.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she says, and he closes his eyes. He wants to believe that, but he can’t help but worry. Marta is too important. He hates the idea of her as bait. He hates putting her in any type of danger. If he could he would lock her up in this house and make sure she didn’t go anywhere.

“We don’t know that for certain. Byer’s capable of anything, Doc, and I just…” Marta reaches up and silences him with a kiss.

“I know a few things for certain,” she tells him. “I know that I love you. I know that you’ll do anything you can to protect me, and I know that we aren’t safe until Byer is found. And I know that the quickest way to get him to come out of hiding is for him to think that he can get to me.”

“And what if he does? Get to you? What if instead of running you off a road, he takes you? Do you know what he’s capable of?” Marta feels his arms tighten around her, and she knows that he’s afraid, and she loves him for it.

“I know you’ll move heaven and earth to find me,” her voice is fierce. Aaron sighs.

Landy had suggested that Marta start appearing alone, or seemingly alone at the very least. Aaron was going to stop driving her to work, or accompanying her to the grocery store. Outwardly, Landy had explained, they need to make it appear as if they were resuming their lives.

“Byer needs to be lulled into a false sense of security,” Landy had said. “Tomorrow Marta needs to drive herself to work, and in a couple of days we need to make it look like Aaron’s been called away on a trip for work.”

“You think Byer’s still watching the house?” Marta asked.

“Yes,” the reply came from both Aaron and Pamela, and Marta had nodded.

Marta was worried. It would be foolish to be completely confident about their plan. But she meant it when she said that she trusted Aaron to protect her. She was a smart woman, she knew that Byer could not be underestimated. But she also knew that she couldn’t live like this, the waiting, the wondering, and she also knew that Aaron would do whatever he needed to keep them both safe, and the knowledge of that kept her calm.

* * *

 

Aaron had a ring and it was burning a hole in his pocket. He had called up Marta’s sister Beth and under the guise of a work trip, he had gone up to see her. Marta’s parents were both dead, gone in a car accident during her junior year of college, but he knew that it would mean a lot to Marta to have her sister involved.

“I would like to marry your sister,” he had said when he arrived on Beth’s doorstep. She had ushered him in and thrown her arms around him.

“I’d tell you that you better take care of her, and that I would hunt you down and hurt you if you let anything happen to her, but I don’t think those words are appropriate in this situation. I’m pretty sure that you can kill me with your pinky finger,” Beth had laughed, her eyes shimmering with tears. “But take care of her, got it?”

They picked out a ring, one that Beth promised that Marta would love. Aaron turned it over in his hands on the flight home, imagining what it would look like on Marta’s slender finger. But now that he had the ring, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Every time he thought about asking her, he lost his courage. Somehow, asking Marta to marry him was far more terrifying than any op that Outcome had ever sent him on.

“You look preoccupied,” Marta said one morning as they sat eating their breakfast. She reached out and wrapped her hand around his. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he reassured her, bringing their clasped hands to his mouth and kissing her fingers. “Just some work stuff.” She looked skeptical, but she dropped it.

And the ring still sat, wrapped in a sock, buried at the bottom of the drawer. He wanted it on her finger, and he still had no idea how to get it there. He tried while they were out at dinner, but he couldn’t get the words to come out. Marta had frowned, thinking he didn’t feel well, and had quickly taken care of the check and ignored his repeated insistence that he was okay and hustled them home.

He thought about surprising her at work, but there were too many details that had to be taken care of and that could go wrong. He thought about taking her to her favorite park and proposing by a fountain, but to be honest, that wasn’t exactly him. Hot air balloons were too clichéd, proposing at a baseball game would result in Marta not only turning him down, but maybe also murdering him. On top of a sundae was out, knowing Marta she would accidentally eat the ring and then they’d be in real trouble.

In the end, he was just as unprepared as Marta when it happened. They were lying in bed on a lazy Sunday, Aaron’s fingers tracing designs on Marta’s bare back, when he just opened his mouth and the words came spilling out.

“Marry me?” He asked and she had sat up suddenly, wrapping the sheets around her and staring at him open mouthed. He was as surprised as she was; the words had just been waiting on the tip of his tongue, eager to tumble out.

“What? Are you serious?” He quickly climbed out of bed and opened the drawer to pull out the little velvet box nestled there.

“Yes,” he said. “I am serious. I love you, Marta. I love this house, I love our life, and I want to make everything official. I want you to be stuck with me for the rest of your life. I just, I love you so much.” He paused. “Should I get down on one knee? Women like that, right?” She giggled, but her voice was watery when she shook her head.

“No, just get back in bed,” she threw the covers over and he climbed back in. He pulled her into his arms, kissing her temple. He opened the box and extended it so that Marta could see the ring.

“Marry me?” He asked again.

“Yes,” she answered simply, kissing him soundly. Aaron’s hands trembled slightly as he slid the ring onto her finger, and then he leaned down and kissed her fingertips.

“I’m sorry I didn’t plan this better. I was going to have some elaborate proposal, but I wasn’t sure what to do,” he confessed.

“This,” she punctuated her statement with a kiss. “Is perfect.”

* * *

Marta drives herself to work, looking in her rearview mirror during the drive. She spots the CIA agents assigned to follow her, and while they make her feel safer, she still can’t help but be nervous until she’s safely inside her lab. She’s jumpy all day, but she makes herself leave to get lunch, and she notices at least three men who could be agents, but could also be with Byer, and she wills herself to slow down as she hurries back into the building.

Aaron calls when she gets back to her desk, and just the sound of his voice is enough to calm her down.

“How’s it going?” Aaron asks. She sighs.

“I hope we catch him soon,” she replies. “I can’t take this for very long. The uncertainty, the waiting, the worrying. It’s driving me crazy.” She hadn’t gotten much work done that day, it reminded her of when they first arrived back in the United States and she spent most of her first few weeks worried that another coworker was going to snap and turn on them.

“I know,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Doc, you know I hate this.” Aaron was just as anxious to end this as she was, maybe even more so. All things considered her accident was possibly harder on Aaron than it was on her. “Be careful on the way home. I’ll be waiting for you. Call if you have any problems.” Marta promises to call, but she doesn’t think that Byer will try the same thing twice.

She’s not afraid of being run off the road again. She’s afraid of being taken, of being caught, of Byer grabbing her when she walks to her car, or to get lunch. She’s afraid he’ll take her when she’s running to the grocery store. She’s thinks Aaron will stop at nothing to get to her if Byer grabs her, but she’s afraid of all the things Byer is capable of before Aaron can get to her.


	5. Take me home

It takes three weeks.

Three weeks of Marta looking over her shoulder, three weeks of Aaron going crazy with worry every time she stepped out of the house. After three weeks, Marta starts to worry that she’ll always be looking over her shoulder. She starts to think that maybe Byer has truly disappeared, but they’ll never know, and they’ll never be safe.

She isn’t sleeping at night, and Aaron knows this because he isn’t either. He can’t think of anything but all the terrible ways this plan could go wrong, and when he has his arms full of Marta at night, he knows he will do anything to keep her there. He can’t lose her. He just can’t. She’s everything he thought he couldn’t have.

He reaches for her hand at night, for the ring that he put there, and twists it slightly. She turns her head and he drops a kiss into her dark hair and tells her to go back to sleep. He wants this to be over so that Marta can go back to planning their wedding.

It takes three weeks.

* * *

 

It was only four days after Aaron put that ring on Marta’s finger that Byer first ran her off the road.

He and Marta made love before she went to work that morning; since he proposed both were finding it hard to keep their hands off each other. She made a big show of calling him her fiancé, and he had been amazed every time the word came out of her mouth.

“Say it again,” he insisted, and she giggled and kissed him softly.

“You’re my fiancé,” she repeated, and he attached his mouth to hers to muffle the words.

Aaron was so unused to being that happy that when she called him, panicked and scared, he almost expected it. Of course the other shoe would drop. Of course something would happen. He wasn’t allowed to be this blissfully content. He had committed too many sins in his life, and now he had to pay for those. But Marta was too big of a price.

After Aaron pulled her out of the water, her lips were blue and he was trying desperately to squash the panic. He had called 911 on his way, and strained to hear the sirens. She was in and out of consciousness, her eyes fluttering and her body shivering. He cradled her to him, and kept her hand in his, her engagement ring cutting into his palm.

“Stay with me, Doc,” he begged. “Stay with me.”

“Aaron,” Marta mumbled, and he pulled her closer to him. The amount of relief he felt when he finally heard the sirens was overwhelming. He had carried her up to the road, and when the ambulance came racing towards them, he tiredly lifted one arm and waved them over.

“What happened?” The first paramedic asked as he hopped out of the back of the ambulance and rushed towards Marta.

“Her car went off the bridge,” Aaron explained. He reluctantly let the EMT take her out of his arms and they began to throw words above his head. He was intelligent enough to catch some of them, and he thought painfully that Marta would know exactly what they were saying. He knew enough about body language and tone to know that Marta’s condition was serious. They began to load her into the ambulance, and Aaron half wanted to just abandon his car where it was sitting by the side of the road, but there were things in his vehicle that he wouldn’t want Byer or his people getting their hands on, and in the end, he climbed into his own car and followed behind.

At the hospital, the nurse tried to stop him as he ran back towards where they had taken Marta, but he had shaken her off.

“She’s my fiancée,” he argued, but the nurse took him by the arm and led him to a chair in the waiting room. He thought about Marta saying that word and giggling and his heart ached, was that just that morning?

“I understand that sir, but they’ll take good care of her. You’d just be in the way,” her words were matter of fact, and he slumped down into the seat to wait. He thought about calling one of their neighbors, just to have someone to wait with him, but he wasn’t sure what he would tell them. He called Marta’s sister Beth, and she promised that she would be on the first flight out.

“Please, call me with updates,” Beth’s voice had wavered, and Aaron had agreed. “She’ll be okay, Aaron. Okay? She’ll be okay. There’s just no other option. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

And then he just sat and waited until someone came and told him that he could go back and see Marta. She was motionless in the bed, so pale and still, and he took her hand and wrapped his fingers around hers and then he just sat and waited. A nurse tried to get him to leave, something about visiting hours or some nonsense like that, but he had gave her his most charming smile and she finally relented. There was no way in hell he was moving from that seat until Marta opened her eyes. He would take down anyone who tried to insist otherwise.

Beth arrived the next morning. She appeared in the doorway to Marta’s room, with her hand over her mouth and her eyes glassy.

“She’s got to stop doing this to me,” Beth complained as she sat down on the other side of the bed from Aaron and taking Marta’s free hand. “I just don’t know how much more I can take.” She was quiet for a moment. “Who did this?” Aaron sighed in response and Beth’s voice was firm. “It was that man, wasn’t it? The one who gave the order to kill her in the first place?”

“Yes,” Aaron answered.

“You’ll kill him?” Beth asked softly. She looked up and met Aaron’s eyes. “Kill him.”

“I plan on it.”

* * *

 

Marta sighs as she pushes away her microscope. She’s tired of waiting for Byer to make a move, she’s tired of worrying.

Three weeks of Marta glancing over her shoulder, of Aaron worrying every time she left the house, and after three weeks Marta was starting to become less worried. Landy had no intelligence to suggest that Byer had risen to their bait, and Marta was beginning to think that he knew what they were doing and was going to wait them out.

She’s tired, and she’s hungry, so she stretches her limbs and calls out to her co-workers asking if anyone wants anything from the deli across the street. Aaron’s been trying to get her to eat healthier, as she fondly recalled for him all the vending machine foods she would eat at Sterisyn-Mortlana.

“A dinner of Snickers, Funyuns, and Little Debbie does not a balanced meal make,” Aaron teased her.

“Oh, but they were delicious,” she grinned back at him. He insisted on packing her healthy snacks, and she promised to try to eat something for lunch that didn’t come out of a machine.

She runs across the street to the deli, and it doesn’t occur to her to make sure that Landy’s people are aware that she’s leaving. She’s so used to her shadows at this point, that she doesn’t give them a second thought.

Grabbing a sandwich from Max at the deli, she gives him a smile and steps out into the bright sunlight.

She never sees the man step out of the shadows.

She never makes it back across to the lab.

* * *

Aaron calls the lab every day around the same time. He likes to check in on her; he likes to make sure she’s okay.

When her co-worker Tom tells him she stepped across the street to grab a sandwich something in Aaron’s stomach clenches. He’s not sure what makes him tense up. Marta often goes across the street to get lunch; that was part of the deal, she had to continue to do what she did before the accident to lull Byer into a false sense of security.

“How long ago did she leave?” Aaron asks, trying to keep his voice level.

“Oh, it wasn’t that long ago,” Tom says. Aaron feels the knot in his gut start to lessen. “Oh, wait, is it already three? I did not think it was that late. Hey! Did Marta ever come back?” He shouts back to their other co-workers.

Aaron doesn’t need to hear Tom’s answer to know what it was.

No. She never came back.

“I don’t know man, I guess it was a while ago,” Tom finally answers, but Aaron’s already stopped listening. He hangs up just as Landy rushes in.

“Aaron,” she says, and her voice is low and her face is stony.

“I know,” he tells her. “He has her.”


	6. When the wind wraps around me like the reaper's hand

Aaron paces in their kitchen.

He doesn’t know what else to do with himself. Marta is gone. He knows Byer has her, and Landy keeps assuring him that they will get her back, but every minute that she’s with Byer is too long. He’ll keep her alive, of that much Aaron is sure. He’ll keep her alive until he draws Aaron in, but alive doesn’t mean unharmed, and Aaron’s insides twist at the idea of Byer raising a hand to Marta.

“He’ll contact you,” Landy speaks up from where she’s hunched in the corner with another operative, going over surveillance footage from around Marta’s lab. “It’s just a matter of time.” But time is what Marta doesn’t have.

Aaron slumps into a chair feeling helpless. He wants to go out there and tear apart the city to find her, but Byer could be hiding her anywhere. However he had grabbed her, he had done so without leaving so much as a trace behind.

“I have something!” A tech calls and Aaron is on his feet within seconds. “A video camera from a bank three doors down. Look.” He brings up the footage and then zeroed in on Marta leaving the deli, a bag of food swinging in her hands. She’s not even out from under the awning when a man steps up behind her. Her knees buckle and he scoops her up and hands off her limp body to another man in a van.

“He must have done something to her, some sort of drug,” Aaron mutters as he watches the footage again. “Can we get a visual on that van?”

“We have them heading north, and we’re in the process of accessing all of the video cameras from around that area. We’ll have something soon,” the tech promises. “We think we have a license plate number, but it’s a vehicle that was reported stolen months ago. We’re following up on that, but we’re not sure it will do us much good.”

“Aaron! You have a call coming in,” Landy shouts and Aaron freezes for a moment before he takes the phone Landy hands him in his shaking hands.

“Cross,” he answers.

“Aaron?” Marta’s voice is shaky.

“Doc,” he breathes. “Are you okay?”

“Not completely,” she answers, and he hangs his head and clenches his fists.

“I’ll get you out of there,” he promises. He hears talking in the background.

“He says to tell you that you can make a trade, me for you,” she parrots. Aaron would make that trade in a heartbeat if he thought Byer would stick to his word. But he wants both of them dead. It won’t be over until Byer is caught or dead, and Aaron needs for this to be over. Marta needs for this to be over.

He had screamed at Landy when she first reported Marta gone. He wrecked the kitchen in anger, throwing chairs and pounding his fist into the table.

“You promised me you’d keep her safe!” He shouted. Landy, to her credit, took his anger in stride.

“I did. We failed, I’m so sorry. But this isn’t helping to get her back,” she replied calmly, and leaned down and righted a chair he had flipped over. Since his outburst, he had been surprisingly calm, but hearing Marta’s voice, tired and scared, made the rage fill him up again.

“Tell me when and where,” Aaron tells Marta and he hears her repeat it back to Byer. She rattles off a time and a location not too far from their house, further out away from the city.

“Come alone,” Marta adds. She trails off and then there’s the sound of flesh hitting flesh and her crying out. Aaron closes his eyes and tries to even out his breathing.

“I love you,” Marta says, her voice broken.

“I love you, Doc. You have no idea how much. I will come get you,” Aaron promises before the line is cut off. He stares at the phone for a moment and then turns around to see all the techs and agents working furiously.

“We’re tracing the location she gave us,” Landy tells him. “It’s a warehouse not too far from here.”

“We’re going in tonight,” Aaron’s voice is hard. “She can’t stay there. She can’t.”

“Okay,” Landy is maddeningly calm. Aaron can’t stop picturing all the ways that Byer could be hurting Marta. He can’t stop thinking about the worst case scenario.

“I can bring up a satellite image of the warehouse he’s got her in,” a young man speaks up from behind a computer. Aaron glances around his kitchen. It doesn’t look like the same place he and Marta have breakfast in every morning. He barely recognizes the kitchen counter where they made love only hours after he proposed and she said yes. It’s cluttered now with laptops and wires and papers and the place is swarming with CIA agents and techs and all he wants is his house, quiet and empty, save for him and Marta.

Aaron steps behind the tech and watches as a warehouse comes up on the screen. It’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by cows and fields and it’s suddenly the most important place in the world.

“We’re trying to hack into their cameras,” another tech tells Aaron. “We have confirmed that they have some sort of surveillance system. Now it’s a matter of getting in.”

“If we can get in,” Landy says. “We can find out where they are keeping Dr. Shearing and try to work out the best way to extract her. We’ll send another team in to take Byer.”

It’s another hour before they manage to get into the system, and someone begins to sketch out a map of the hallways and rooms. They figure out which room they are keeping Marta in, and when her face appears on the screen, bruised and tired and scared, it makes Aaron want to crawl inside and gather her into his arms. They have her tied to a chair, her arms wrenched behind her and her bare feet on the cold floor. He can see she has a black eye, and a split lip, and he knows there are more bruises he can’t see.

He will kill Byer for this.

* * *

 

Marta’s not aware of how much time has passed since she woke up, tied to a chair, her hands behind her back and her head throbbing.

They gave her something, she’s not sure what, and the scientist in her is trying to determine all of the side effects of it.

Nausea? Check. Lightheadedness? Check. Her ears are ringing and her vision is blurred, but that could be either the drug or the fact that she’s almost positive she has a concussion. She’s in pain, cold, her hands and feet went numb ages ago, and she wouldn’t give Byer the satisfaction, but she’s beyond terrified.

If this is where it ends, if this is where she dies, she lets herself feel grateful to be able to tell Aaron one more time that she loved him. She wanted to tell him not to come for her, to save himself, but she knows him and she knows he wouldn’t listen. He’ll come for her, and that knowledge is the only thing keeping her sane.

The door clicks open and Byer steps in the room, a smug smile on his face.

“Just a little longer now, Dr. Shearing,” he tells her. “I have a feeling Outcome 5 won’t wait until our pre-arranged time, so he should be here soon, I would think. And don’t worry; I plan on killing you first.” Marta makes sure her face is impassive. She’s safe until Aaron can get here, and she has to keep that in mind.

“They’ll catch you eventually. Even if you kill us, you can’t hide forever. Unlike your program participants you just aren’t that capable,” she says and she’s rewarded with a backhand across her face. She tastes blood in her mouth, and she spits it out.

“Cross seems to have worn off on you, I don’t remember you being this feisty before, Doctor,” Byer shakes his head. “I wouldn’t try to make things more unpleasant for myself if I were you.” He leaves the room then and plunges it into darkness and Marta lets herself cry.

* * *

Aaron adjusts the earpiece and listens as Landy gives instructions to the other team. His team’s mission was to get Marta out. Let the others handle Byer.

He tucks another gun in the back of his pants and shifts his weight. He feels the same anxious energy he always feels before a mission, and he does his best to focus on the task and not on all the things that could possibly go wrong.

“Cross, are you ready?” Landy’s voice is in his ear.

“Affirmative,” he answers. He’s ready to tear that building apart. He’s ready to get her back. He’ll get her back.

There’s just no other option that he’s willing to entertain.


	7. I will swing free until they cut me down

When Landy gives the signal, Aaron rushes to the door.

The guard is easy to dispatch, and the door clicks open. It’s easy so far, and that makes Aaron uneasy.

“Turn right down the hall,” Landy instructs, “but be careful. You may have company. I think they were ready for us.” Instead of these words making Aaron nervous, he feels a sudden rush of adrenaline. He lets his brain go blank. It’s easier to focus on the task when he doesn’t let himself think about Marta, whether or not she’s hurt, or scared, or worse. He doesn’t let himself think about her, and it’s the only way he can keep moving forward.

He makes the right turn and immediately sees a mass of bodies heading towards him. He pulls out his gun and quickly downs the first couple, and then is grateful for the help from Landy’s men as they come streaming in the open door behind him. He slips by in the chaos and continues further into the building. Marta is the only thing that matters.

“To the left,” Landy instructs. Aaron keeps moving, and flattens himself against the wall. He can tell that’s where they’re keeping her. There are guards and what he knows are LARX agents, he can tell by their movement, their fluidity and when they stop moving, the way that aren’t fidgeting, their bodies perfectly still listening for any sign of Cross or another CIA agent.

“I’m going to need some help,” he speaks as softly as he can into the earpiece, but when he glances around he can still see the agents moving slightly towards where he’s pressed himself as flat as he can. He’s so close to where Marta is. He just needs to get to her. But there are a lot of them, and he can’t fail this mission. He can’t.

“Copy,” Landy replies, and then he can see some of the CIA agents heading towards him, and he’s so grateful that he and Marta aren’t alone, don’t have to do this alone. Even with the help, it’s hard to dodge all the attacks from the LARX agents. There are three of them, along with the regular guards, and Aaron finds himself dodging bullets and fists at an equal interval. He hears gunfire further down the hall, and hopes they have found Byer, wherever that rat is hiding.

“Go, get her,” Landy’s voice is in his ear. “They’ll hold them off out here.” Aaron doesn’t hesitate. The door is steel, reinforced, and he swears under his breath.

“I’m not sure how to get into the door,” he replies. “Where is she in the room? Is she back away from the door?” Byer’s no idiot, and of course, Marta is front and center, tied to the chair, slumped over and bleeding. If they try to blow the door or shoot through it, Marta might get hit. Aaron swears again, this time creatively, in Hungarian. He notices the door is electronic, and he needs to find a badge, or a swipe card to get in. He starts with the fallen guards, checks their pockets to find something that will let him in.

“Keep looking, in the meantime, one of the techs is going to see if he can override the electronic code,” Landy tells him. He hears one of the CIA agents call out and he ducks just in time to see a LARX agent hovering behind him with a smoking gun. The agent shoots the LARX agent, this time square in the forehead, and he finally falls and there’s a moment of silence before all hell breaks loose again. The hallway swarms with bodies, and there’s just chaos, and Aaron is ducking and firing and still trying to find a way inside, find a way to Marta.

“Cross! We’re in!” He can barely hear Landy in his ear above all the noise, but he drops what he’s doing and rushes to the door. It clicks open and he has to stop for a moment, because Marta is there, and for a moment he’s afraid she’s not breathing, her head is slumped over and there’s blood dripping onto the floor, but she tiredly lifts her head and he feels relief so strong that it makes his legs sag slightly.

“Marta,” he breathes and is at her side instantly, untying the gag and brushing hair out of her eyes. She winces when he accidentally touches a cut on her forehead, and he mutters an apology.

“Aaron,” she whispers, and he presses a desperate kiss to her dry, chapped lips. She starts to cry, as he hurries to untie the ropes. “Aaron!” Her voice is more urgent now, and he shushes her, tells her that he’s got her and it’s all right. “Aaron, listen to me!” She has his attention now, and he glances up at her and sees that she’s terrified, her body is trembling and tears are spilling down her face.

“What, Doc?”

“It’s a trap,” her voice is panicked. “Byer’s already gone. He’s rigged this place to blow.” Aaron freezes, his hands still cupping her face. He swears under his breath and reports that back to Landy.

“Get out of there,” is her swift answer. “We’ll work on it from here.”

“Aaron, we won’t make it in time,” Marta says mournfully. “I love you. I love you so much.”

“We can,” Aaron insists, and he cuts the last of her ropes and helps her to her feet. She sways and he picks her up and starts running. She’s so light, and he cradles her close to his body as he dodges a couple of stray bullets. He yells to their people to get out, stop fighting, and sprints to the open door. He’s almost there, he’s just through the door when he feels ground shakes beneath his feet and he feels the heat.

He prays to whoever will listen and throws himself on top of Marta’s body to protect her the best he can, and hopes it’s enough.

* * *

Landy hears the explosion and swears from her place at headquarters.

“Cross!” She yells, but she doesn’t get an answer. She immediately organizes medics and emergency crews to the scene. Damn Byer, she thinks, but then a tech grabs her attention and she hurries over to his computer.

“Look,” he points to surveillance footage of a truck, looking awfully similar to the one that grabbed Dr. Shearing, racing away from the scene before the explosion.

“Can we track that van?” She asks.

“It’s already done,” he reports. “We’re tracking it right now.”

“Great,” Landy feels some relief. That bastard Byer is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. “We’ll send a team to intercept.”

She needs to get this guy. She needs to see him suffer. He thought he was untouchable. He thought his hands were clean because he didn’t do the dirty work himself. He gave the orders. He loaded the guns.

And she would make sure he would pay.

* * *

Aaron blinks open his eyes and the first thought that registers is Marta. The second is pain, serious and overwhelming. But Marta overrides all other thoughts. She’s lying beneath him, still and pale and his heart stops for a moment.

“Doc,” he murmurs and fumbles to find a pulse, and the relief he feels when he finds one is overwhelming. They made it outside, but there’s still debris and rubble around them. He starts to take an inventory of Marta’s injuries. There’s bruises and cuts from her time with Byer, including around her wrists and ankles where that bastard had tied her up. There’s a fresh nasty cut on her forehead, and he rips the sleeve off of his shirt and presses it to stop the bleeding. She must have hit her head, and her arm is twisted under her at a strange angle. He’s afraid of moving her, and so he sits up and is very glad to see paramedics hurrying over to them.

“Over here!” He shouts and below him Marta groans. She coughs a few times and then her eyes open.

“Aaron?” She mutters, and he grabs her hand and presses a kiss to it.

“Stay still, Doc,” he tells her softly. “Help’s coming. What hurts?”

“Everything,” she replies. The medics arrive and start asking both of them questions, but Aaron doesn’t care about himself. He’ll heal. Marta is hurt. She needs their attention, undivided and focused.

“Take care of her first,” he instructs. They strap her to the backboard and he’s by her side as they carefully move her away from the destroyed building.

“I’m right behind you, Doc. I love you, okay? I love you so much.”

Aaron allows someone to look him over after they’ve hurried Marta away, words flying over Aaron’s head, but only if they do it en route to wherever they’ve taken Marta to. He contacts Landy in the ambulance, reports that he and Marta are still alive, and gets an update on the search for Byer.

“We’re tracking him,” Landy reports.

“We need to get him,” Aaron’s voice is hard, and Landy can hear the barely controlled anger.

“How’s Marta?” She asks. Aaron sighs.

“They’re taking her to the hospital, I don’t know anything. She was awake and talking, though,” and he’s so grateful for that.

“That’s a good sign. That’s good. She’s a fighter, she’ll be okay,” Landy reassures, and they hang up so that Landy can focus her energy on finding Byer and Aaron can focus his energy on Marta.

When he gets to the hospital, he waves away any other offers of help or fixing him. They’ve stitched him up and given him something for the pain and told him he probably has a concussion and they’d like to do some tests to make sure, but he’s been banged up worse than this, and so he declines and asks instead where Marta is. They take him to her hospital room, and he gets a feeling of déjà vu, and he hates it. Hates seeing her in that bed, hates that she’s hurt, hates that they still don’t have Byer in custody. Hates it, hates it, hates it.

She’s awake when he walks in and he’s at her side in an instant. She smiles at him and reaches for his hand. Her wrists are bandaged and he presses a kiss to the inside of her palm.

“You okay?” She asks.

“I should be asking you that,” he answers.

“I’m okay,” she tries to shrug, but it hurts and it turns into a grimace instead.

“Give me the rundown,” he insists, and she looks to the doctor who just entered the room.

“She’s got some bruises and a few cuts that required some stitches. We’ll have to keep an eye out so that the wounds don’t get infected, especially the ones around her wrists and ankles. She hit her head pretty hard, and we’ll keep an eye on that too. She's got a broken arm, which we've set and should heal nicely. And the cocktail of drugs she was given, I presume to knock her out, is causing an adverse reaction, and so we’ve given her something to help with the nausea and lightheadedness.”

“I’ve been better,” Marta gives Aaron’s hand a squeeze. She looks him in the eye. “But I’m okay.” The doctor leaves to give them a little privacy and as soon as the door is shut behind him, Aaron’s mouth is on hers.

“You’ve no idea how worried I’ve been,” he says. He buries his face in her hair and takes comfort in the fact that she’s here with him.

“I thought we were going to die in there,” Marta admits, and Aaron, minding the wires and her bruises, gathers her into his arms. “I thought _I_ was going to die.” And he’s not sure what to say to that, just so damn thankful that she didn’t. She buries her head in his shoulder, her hands gripping his shirt tightly, and she’s quiet for a moment. “Did we get him? Byer? Please tell me we got him.”

“Landy’s got a team tracking him,” Aaron tells her, and she shudders.

“I just want him caught. I just want it over,” she whispers, and he drops a kiss into her dark hair and hugs her tighter to him.

“Me too, sweetheart.”


	8. When the sea takes me like my mother's arms

Pamela Landy appears in the door to Marta’s hospital room and stands quietly for a moment.

Marta is asleep, and Aaron’s head is down on the bed, her smaller hand tucked into his larger one, but she doesn’t think he’s asleep. She thinks this must be how he looked for those three days before Marta woke up when he pulled her out of the water. Landy’s heart breaks for these two. They’ve been through enough, Marta has been through enough.

She clears her throat and Aaron’s head snaps up, but he relaxes when he sees that it’s just her. They have armed guards at all entrances, as well as at Marta’s door. It wasn’t hard to recruit anyone to stand for hours protecting the doctor; Landy had had plenty of volunteers: agents who had fallen for Dr. Shearing’s charms during the weeks leading up to this.

“Do we have him yet?” Aaron’s voice is quiet and dangerous, and Landy wouldn’t want him for an enemy.

“As far as we know he has no idea we’ve been following him. He’s in a farmhouse in Connecticut, and we have the place surrounded.”

“What are you waiting for?” Aaron asks.

“You,” Landy replies. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be there when we take him in.”

Aaron’s torn, she can tell. He glances down at Marta, and squeezes her hand.

“Place your best agents in front of her door while I’m gone,” Aaron instructs. He leans down and places a soft kiss to her forehead and brushes a piece of her hair out of her face. “I’ll be back, sweetheart. You just rest.” Marta stays asleep, and Aaron follows Landy out of the room.

“We have a helicopter waiting,” Landy leads him up to elevator and hits the button for the roof. “We’ll get him, Cross.” His jaw tightened and she felt him tense next to her.

“We need to. This needs to end,” he finally says, stepping out of the elevator and towards the waiting helicopter.

* * *

He was in that building. Byer. He was there, in that farmhouse, so close after all this time.

Aaron was letting Landy do the coordinating. She had come through for them back at the warehouse, after all. They had gotten Marta out, relatively unharmed. That was enough in Aaron’s book to allow him to trust Landy. She said wait, he was waiting. Impatiently, sure. But he was waiting.

“Cross. We have confirmation of seven people in the house, we think Byer is on the second floor, third room on the left,” Landy relays. “Go get him.”

She didn’t need to tell Aaron twice. They swarm on the house, taking out a few of Byer’s people as they stream through the door. Aaron has no time for any of them; he’s singularly focused on the man in the third room on the left upstairs. He takes out a couple more on his way upstairs, trying to be as quiet as possible to not tip Byer off. His hand turns on the doorknob and Byer is standing there, a gun aimed at Aaron as he steps through the door.

“Outcome 5,” Byers sneers. “I’d have hoped that you were held up back at the warehouse. Can I take this to mean that the good Dr. Shearing also made it out alive? Pity.” Aaron’s grip tightens on his gun. Byer's hand is shaking, Aaron notices. He's scared, and he should be, and Aaron thinks about trying to take him alive. Byer's not strong enough to fight him, not really, but Aaron can't think of anything but Marta's tearful face. Her terrified look and her whispered "I love you" when she thought they were going to die. 

No. It ended here. Byer wasn't leaving this farmhouse alive. Not after what he did to Marta. Not after Aaron had to hold her in his arms, _twice_ , and pray to anyone who would listen to let her be okay. 

“You know, you could have just left us alone. In Manila. Once we got to Boston. You didn’t have to come after us. You could have just left us alone." 

“I don’t like loose ends,” Byer replies.

“Neither do I,” Aaron says, and he pulls the trigger.

* * *

Landy is waiting for him outside. They have managed to get a few of Byer’s people in custody, alive, but Aaron doesn’t pay attention to any of them.

“Byer?” Landy asks as Aaron approaches.

“Taken care of,” Aaron responds. “I’d like to get back to Marta.”

He’s by her side a few hours later when Marta wakes up, her eyes searching for Aaron as they blink open, her hand squeezing his.

“Hey,” she says with a tired smile.

“Hey,” he replies. He leans in and gives her a kiss. “How are you feeling?”

“Meh,” she gives a shrug, and then winces, and he brushes her hair from off her face.

“I’ve got some news,” he tells her softly.

“Byer?” She asks.

“Dead.” Marta closes her eyes for a second, and then when she opens them she gives him a dry smile.

“How long have I been asleep?” She asks. He gives a small laugh and presses a kiss to her temple. He notices her shoulders shaking slightly, and he pulls back, concerned.

“What’s the matter Doc?” He asks, brushing a thumb across her cheek.

“I’m just so relieved. It’s over, right?”

“Yes,” he pulled her to him carefully, mindful of her bumps and bruises. “It’s over.”

* * *

It took a while to adjust again, but Marta stopped looking over her shoulder and Aaron stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. He still worried about her; that was something that came as naturally to him as breathing. But things were better.

Landy and her men packed up their things to return to DC, and the three stood at the end of Marta and Aaron’s driveway saying their goodbyes.

“Thank you,” Aaron said, but it didn’t seem like enough. Marta hugged Landy, taking the older woman slightly by surprise.

“You’ll come to the wedding?” She asked, and Landy nodded.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she answered, and Marta beamed, as Aaron wrapped an arm around her and tugged her closer. They stood and watched as Landy drove away, and turned back and headed inside their house.


End file.
